The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1887-05-26
DON MIFF.
EXTRACTS FROM THIS CHARMING
SOUTHERN NOVEL.
Some Pictures from Southern I.ife..SOme
Negro Dialect-.-And Some Opinions
from Don Min.


CHRONICLE wrote an extended review of
Virginius Dabney's novel, Don MEtf, and
said that it was the most delightful and
charming book of Southern life published
IN recent years. AT that time we prom
ised to give our readers some choice ex-
tracts from the book. The fYllowing, taken
at random, are among the brightest things
in the bright novel Neither extract here
published has connection with the other.
The reader will see that there is humor,
philosophy and fine sense in them ALL
The abolitionists,-to praise them is the
toughest task my conscience ever put upon
me,-though they brought on the war,
were not war-men. They honestly abhor
ed slavery, and had the courage of their
convictions. They would have let the
''erring sisters depart in peace so as to
rid the Union of the blot Of African servi
tude, and deserve such honor as is due to
earnest men. Later on, they changed their
position but middle aged men will remem
Der what their views were at the opening
of the struggle.
But ah, what lotus dreams we were a
dreaming, when from out our blue sky
LIZ UOlU Ol WdE lcli upOu us. Nc llN cO III
a land in which no one was hungry, none
naked, none a-cold; where no man begged,
and no man was criminal, no woman
fell-from necessity; where no one asked
for bread, and all, even the slaves, could
give it; where Charity was unknown, and
IN her stead stood Hospit ality, with open
doors. What tdings we had meanwhile, of
the things of the outer world made us cher
ish all the more fondly the quietude of our
Sleepy Hollow. The nations, had they not
filled the air for a century passed with the
murmur of their unrest1 Revolutions,
rebellions, barricades, bread-riots, agra
rianism, communism, the frOwnlng hosts
Of capital and labor the rumor of
these grizzly facts and grizzlier phan
toms reached u.s. but from afar, and as an
echo merely; and lulled, by our exemp-
ton from these ills. into a fatal security,
we failed to perceive the breakers upon
which we were slowly but surely drifting.
The lee shore upon which our ship was SO
somnolently rocking was nothing less than
bankruptcy Spendthrlfts, We dreamed
that our inheritance was too vast ever to
be disslpatei; nay, we fondly imagined
that we were adding to our substance.
Did not our statesmen, our Able Editors,
increasingly assure US that we We're the
richest people on the globe, and growing
daily richer. and what had been that in
heritance! \ noble, virgin land, unsur
passed. all things considered, anywhere, =
a land that cost US nothing beyond the
beads of Captain Smith and the bullets of
his successors.-a land which no mortg
ges smothered, no taX-gat herer devoured.
But smothered and devoured 1t was, and
by our slaves.
may remark here, that before the late
war it was very gratifying to middle
aged negro to be thought old. There was
on every farm a considerable proportion
of the ladies and gentlemen of color who
had voted themselves too old or too intirm
to labor. Their diseases, they We're all
diseased, while masking their malignity
behind such empll ical euphemisms AS rheu-
matiz or misery in de chist, ba1f1ed all di
agnosis, and We're invariably incurable;
for who can minister TO a mind diseased
with that most obstinate of ailments, an
aversion, to-wit, to putting i'll movement
the muscles OF ones own body2 There
was, 50 to speak, an Iiopitai des !nvalldes
on every farm; and on my grandfathers $
the emeriti and emertae were in strong
force.
And traly it was pleasant sight, pro
vided you were not a political economist
or a philanthropist, to walk among the
cabins, on bright autumn afternoon,
and see the good souls sitting, summing
themselves, and hear the serene murmur
of their prattle, broken, ever and anon,
by some mellow burst of careless laughter,
Just think of it, for moment, Here,
throughout Virginia, there were, in those
days, on every farm, three or four, or a
dozen, OF a score of servants, who had
rested from their labors at an age when
one may say the struggle glows tisrcest
with the European races. A roof was
over their heads, bright fire cracked on
their hearths Their food, if plain, was
abundant. And there was not possibility
that these things should ever fail them.
That sonorous mellowness of unalloyed
laughter we shall never hear again. But
never mind,-let it pass!
Yes, let it pass There Waa music IN
that laughter, doubtless, but it cost us too
dear. | think we Virginians obviously,
as often elsewhere, Mr.. Whacker here says
Virginians, instead of southerners, to
avoid all semblance OF sectona. feeling
are agreed as to that, than agreed,
yet we cannot bring ourselves to look as
others do. upon the state of things which
rendered it possible, as one man, we
rejoice that slavery is dead; but even the
victors in the late struggle-the magnani-
nous among them, at least-Will hardly
find fault with us if we drop sentimental
tear, as it were, upon its tomb. A reason
able man is & ad that an aching tooth is
we'll out of his mouth; but to the auto
cratic dentist who should pull it out by
force his gratitude would not be bolster
Gus; and then, after all. it leaves void.
Now, for the solidity-it wouldn't do to
saw stOlidity-of our Sabbataranism, We
Virginans may safely defy all rivalry. Nir-
ginia is not only one of the Middle States,
she is the middle State of the Union in
many other respects. but especially in her
theological attitude. While to the north
and east of her, religious systems that
have weathered the storms of centuries are
rocking to their foundations, nay, tum-
bling before our very eyes, undermined
by the inccssant rush of opinions ever
newer, more radical, more aggressive; and
while, to the southwark and westward. We
see the instability and recklessness in
separable from younger communities, the
| Old Dominion stands immovable as rock
| believing what she has always believed,
and seriously minded SO as to believe to
the end of time-astronomy, geology, and
biology to the contrary notwithstanding.
Now, of all the religious convictions of
YOUR true Virginian this is the most deeply
rooted, d,-the most universally accepted
that man was made for the Sabbath, not
| the Sabbath for man.